Local kids celebrate arrival of the year of the snake

FORT LAUDERDALE — While hundreds of millions of Chinese citizens looked forward to the new year, a few dozen local kids celebrated the event early at an afterschool program on Friday.

"We learned that in China they celebrate the new year at a different time," said Kymani of Fort Lauderdale, 9. He attends the free county-run afterschool program at Roosevelt Gardens Park, where about 40 kids met to hear about China and its big holiday.

Sunday will mark the first day of the new year in China, but the Roosevelt celebration was one of many throughout Broward County in the week preceding the Chinese calendar change.

The new year, according to the Chinese horoscope, is that of the snake, leaving the dragon behind.

Kymani was interested to learn that, as one born in 2004, he is a goat.

"I'm more of a lion or a leopard," he said.

The kids made Chinese lanterns, colored pages printed with "Year of the Snake!" in decorative block letters, and ate Chinese rice with chopsticks. It was a simple celebration, said recreation coordinator Danielle Bachelder, but the aim was to make sure these kids grow up realizing that they and their acquaintances "aren't the only kinds of people in the world."

"We're trying to expand their horizons," she said. "All they know is this little block, this little radius. Sometimes these kids can look at a map of the world and not know where they're located."

Cassandra Mitchell, another rec coordinator, said some of the kids didn't know before Friday that other countries have a different calendar and different holidays.

"We live in a multicultural society, and so we have them celebrate a different culture every month," she said. "We want to help the kids get acclimated to how other cultures live, eat, try to get them a little something different than what they'll get in school."

Some of the younger kids might not have learned much about China, though they did have a good time. One little girl said she learned that "in China all their snakes are green." A little boy said he learned from the celebration that "they have real dragons" in China.

But some kids learned important facts about the world's most populous country—like the fact that it's where their Transformers toys are made, or that it takes skill to eat with chopsticks.

"I learned that Chinese people eat their rice with chopsticks," said Damari, 7, of Fort Lauderdale. "It's not hard for me, but they've all got to be pretty smart over there if they can do this."

The kids were rowdy and excited, banging impromptu three- and four-person rhythms on the tables or cutting up construction paper to throw confetti into the air.

Yes, they were excited to learn about the Chinese new year, Bachelder said.